I have lived to see the doctrine thoroughly established, the
College of William and Mary rebuilt by the Government, and
every church and school and hospital which suffered by the
military operations of the Civil War reimbursed, if it has
presented its claim.
If I have been able to render any public service, I look
upon that I have rendered upon the Committee on Claims, although
it has attracted but little attention, and is not of a nature
to make great public impression, as perhaps more valuable
than any other.
The duties of that Committee, when I was upon it, were very
laborious. I find that in the first session of the first
Congress, I made reports in seventeen cases, each of them
involving a study of the evidence, a finding of the facts, and
an investigation, statement and consideration of important
principles of law, in most cases to be applied to a novel state
of facts. I think that winter's work upon the Committee on
Claims alone required more individual labor than that required
to perform the duties of his office by any Judge of a State
Court, of which I have any knowledge; and that the amount
of money, and importance of the principles involved very far
exceeded that involved in the aggregate of the cases in the
Supreme Court of any State for a like period.
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